Moridin

Wow, someone remembers me. : [Apologies for bumping this dead post - it was *only* on page 8] I registered in June 2004. So ... 4 and a half years ago [last visited on Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:33 am] But that is for this incarnation. I remember Scapeboard fondly, largely because it was the forum is used when you could say I was most active. I havent played RS for about two years now. But enough with the nostalgia. I do still have the word document for my big (pointless now) discussion: "On Rapid Heal and its Influence on Theiving." And I have as well the "Omegawytch Chronicles" Neither are particularly useful now, but if there are enough people that want to remember times of yore, I might be persuaded to repost them. Though perhaps not for another week when I am back in North America - the internet is touch and go in this part of China.

Is Time Travel possible? There are some theoretical solutions but for the most part require physics that is still largely untested and still in the preliminary stages. Personally, I don't believe in it for one reason: there aren't any time travelers. I would like to comment on a few things though that I learned in my physics courses at university (i'm doing BSc. in Physics). a) Time Dilation The russian astronaut experience this. As prescribed by relativity, when you travel at *any* speed, you will experience time dilation. What is it? Essentially, if you have a stationary observer (the inertial frame of reference) and an observer who is moving, the moving will *appear* to run slower. Why? Well it's related to Lorentz Transformations which are required when dealing with v ~ 0.5c. While they are perfectly fine at any velocity, the difference (Lorentz Factor) is so minimal that it's only noticable with very senstivie equipment. If you want to use this for time travel, it's only good for a one way trip. As for the Russian astronaut and his 20 milliseconds, he's not in the future in any way. He is merely 20ms older than a (hypothetical) identical twin who stayed on earth. If you want to notice something, you'll have to go ~0.87c to achieve a factor of 2. (1 year in your moving ship = 2 years on stationary earth) If you want to calculate it, the forumla is: gamma = c / (1 - [{v/c}^2]) b)Blackholes and Wormholes These are two different beasts. Blackholes have no escape. Don't enter them. You'll get "spaghettified" as you are stretched into a teeny string and crushed by the tidal forces. According to current theories, you will actually "escape" as the black hole evaporates due to quantum processess. But that takes billion of years and you get "spit out" an atom at a time. So don't hold your breath. Wormholes are theoretical quirks that may never be realized due to energy problems. Many of the theories require "Exotic matter" which, well, is exotic so we dont know what it is. Also there are some that suggest the energy needed is more than the universe contains, so you are sort of buggered there. The reason why wormholes work is because they connect far reaching areas of space together. Imagine a tall skyscraper with no stairs. The elevator connecting the floors would represent the speed of light. You can't get to a higher floor faster than the elevator travels. A wormhole would be a magic door that when you walk through, you reach the top floor from the ground immediately. While it might appear that you travel faster than light, you arent. You are just moving across a shorter distance. c)FTL and Warp Drive! FTL - don't even think about it Warp Drive - Theoretically yes. A physicist named Miguel Alcubierre wrote a paper that discusses warp drive. It is very much how "Dune" works, 'travelling without moving.' He writes that by contracting and expanding space around you, you will "move" much faster that light. Technically, you are stationary, its just the space around you. Don't expect this anytime soon. As for other FTL, its impossible. Einstein's theories do not allow it, this is the Theory of Casaulity. Information cannot travel faster than light. Also the Lorentz Transformations lead to some ugly things. That Lorentz Factor I mentioned? Well, if you replace v with c, you end up with: gamma = c / (1 - [{c/c}^2]) = c / (1 - 1) = c / 0 = eep! Essentially, the curves for mass, time and length become asymptotic at c (i.e they reach infinity) Thus, there is no way to go faster than light. None. Period. Photons travel at light speed because they are massless. Poul Anderson wrote an interesting short novel "Tau Zero" that discusses what happens if a ship were to accelerate forever (never reaching c of course). Essentially, they would reach the end of the universe (assuming omega > 1 and it collapses). d) Closed Timelike Curve Say what? Well, you, me, everybody has a "worldline." This is our path through the universe. For the most part its open, i.e. there is a start and end. However, there are a few ways to close it, thus allowing you to return to the past. These are extremely theoretical however as are the means of creating them. The Tipler Cylinder is one of the popular ways of creating a CTC. It is a cylinder (duh!) made of neutronium that is, well, *very* long. Originally it was to be infinitely long, but Tipler said that several thousand kilometers is good enough, it would also have to be only 20 to 30km across. The only problem is that such a massive structure would collapse under its own weight. How does it work? Well, a sufficiently rotating object will "drag" space-time around it - the Lense-Thirring effect. This is essentially proven, it's been detected around black holes and Gravity Probe B is currently testing this around earth. Now, by draggin spacetime around it, the light cones will begin to tilt until they point *backwards.* If you took a ship and went to the correct place, you could in essence travel backwards in time. There would also be a place would you could go forewards. I should comment that this frame dragging also applies to wormholes, and if one could accelerate one end of a wormhole you would turn the structure into a time machine, but you would be limited to going back to when the entrance first began to accelerate. e) Paradoxes. ZOMG! I KILLED GRANDPA! Not going to happen. Why? It's already happened. Lame answer, but a valid one. It would be rather difficult to do something in the past that would affect the future in a different way since the past has *already* happened. This is in essence the basis of Hawking's "Chronology Protection Conjecture." You can't do anything in the past that will screw up the present because it's already happened. f) Multi Universe The Many-Verse theories might make paradox resolution easier. Specifically, you aren't traveling to *your* past, but to another past. I don't care for this theory because the many-worlds explanation is largely due to the quantum processes and that "god plays dice." There is also a "brick universe" idea which postulate we are like people in a flip book. Each page is a singlular instant. Time is just the perception of flipping the book, moving from page to page. Thus you can be comforted to know that you are immortal to a whole bunch of t=0 universes. I think it's a load of hooey though. g) End of Me Talking! (hurray?) So I'm going to sum up what I've said. Time Travel to Past - Theoretically possible (so far), but I don't really believe in a real-world solution and that once we have a true theory of everything, such time travelling solutions will be gone. Time Travel to Future - High v/c speeds will allow it, but there's no turning back, we don't have the technology to create or power such a high v engine. Antimatter reaction drive is best bet, UV light beaming onto anti-hydrogen crystal liberates anti-hydrogen that is collided with normal hydrogen resulting in mutual annihilation that releases high energy. Faster Than Light - Theoreticaly impossible, foolish to consider this at all. [/soap box]

Total xp: 205,232,912 Combat: 18,843,143 Percent: 9.18% My mage xp sort of skewers me, none of it is combat based and so if you subtract my mage (15,663,212xp) from my total and recalculate; Total xp: 189,569,700 Combat: 3,179,931 Percent: 1.68% 8)